Hellfire, The Durham Brewery, Russian Imperial Stout - Beer Review

I love stout, and I love chili.
Combine the two, and I can't resist.

Hellfire from The Durham Brewery is a seriously good Russian Imperial Stout, marrying the breweries Temptation ale with lots of lovely Naga chillies.
It was a limited Christma beer, a batch of 1,000 bottles, brewed in 2012.

It poured a dense black in the glass, with a thin brown foamy head which quickly vanished.

There were aromas of dates, coffee, treacle, and chillies

The first sip delivers a nice 10% abv, followed by a very pleasant hit of spicy warming chili - Bam!
Flavours of roast malts, dates, prunes, dark chocolate, and liquorice, and fruit; dark berries, also came through, ending in a pleasantly smooth finish.

I enjoyed this stout, it was seriously moreish, I could happily have drunk a lot more of it - shame we'd only bought one bottle.
Mr.R was equally impressed by this fiery brew, and he also wished we'd purchased more bottles.

Hellfire, Russian Imperial Stout, from The Durham Brewery is an excellent full-bodied, full-flavoured, brew with delicious chili. Perfection!

From the label -
Hellfire, a marriage made in hell.

Temptation and chili in an erotic embrace of sumptuous sweet malt and throat burning fire.

The definitive winter warmer - brewed for Christmas 2012.

This beer is bottle-conditioned.
There is a live sediment which continues to mature and develop the flavour and character. 

Store upright and pour gently to avoid disturbing the sediment.

Natural; not filtered.

Serve at 10 degrees C.

Contains water, barley, wheat, hops, yeast and chillies. 
3.3 alcohol units.
330ml
Alc 10% vol. 

Label designed by Dan Walls
illuminationwallart.co.uk

Limited edition 1000 bottles.

The Durham Brewery Ltd,
Unit 6a,
Bowburn North Ind Est,
Bowburn, Durham DH6 5PF.

www.durhambrewery.co.uk

If you like stout, and you like chili, this beer is definitely worth a try - if you can still find a bottle.
Have you tried Hellfire, The Durham Brewery, Russian Imperial Stout?
What did you think of it?

Lyle's Black Treacle - My Craving Resulted in Delicious Flapjacks

I'm not sure why, but a while ago I had a sudden craving for black treacle.
I hadn't eaten black treacle for many many years, but I needed to eat it now.

Anyway, as Mr.R does all of our food shopping, I asked him to buy me a can of the black stuff.
Once I had a can of Lyle's Black Treacle I wasn't exactly sure what to do with it.
So, hoping for inspiration, I opened the can and took a deep breath of the delicious contents.
Then I took a teaspoon and gently dipped it into the can, taking a tiny amount of the black treacle and tasting it.
It tasted exactly how I remembered it.
Don't you love it when that happens; you fancy something you haven't eaten for a long time, you remember exactly how it tasted, and when you eat it again, it tastes how you remembered. Excellent!

From the can -
Lyle's Black Treacle adds a distinctive rich, dark flavour to traditional recipes like Christmas pudding, parkin, treacle toffee and gingerbread. 

It also tastes great in savoury foods, try it as a glaze for salmon.

For quick and simple recipes visit www.lylesgoldensyrup.com

So, I'd fancied the black treacle, but hadn't thought about how I was going to eat it - apart from maybe scoffing it straight from the can, but after my tiny taste test when I first opened the can, that didn't seem like a particularly tasty treacle-y treat.
So I pondered about what to do with the can of black treacle.
I had a quick look in the larder, spotted a packet of porridge oats, and that was it, I decided to make flapjacks - but with treacle instead of honey which is what I usually use.

My black treacle flapjacks came out great.
They tasted really good, with strong flavours of bitter chocolate and coffee liquor.
They were a lot different to my usual flapjacks but seriously tasty, and I think I prefered the black treacle flavour to the honey sweetened flapjacks.

Are you a Black Treacle lover?
How do you eat black treacle?
Have you made black treacle flapjacks?